Inherit The Wind

As a force the country is like nature itself

powerful, mysterious. As nature can be 

benevolent and also dreaded for the fury it 

unleashes as its elements collide with the planet 

so too is the country which like nature is ancient 

and imperial. Nature brooks no interference 

in its rages and so does that country inform others 

that it behooves them to venture lightly in their

approach to the behemoth that it is, for it too

tolerates no interference in its trajectories that 

surpass those of all other nations grasping the 

hard goods it produces while consuming the 

world's store of energy and natural resources. 

In turn the giant bestows upon an anxious world 

a lethal virus complementing lab-produced opioids 

both wreaking havoc in a vulnerable world 

where wealth of nations decline as the colossus

offers the shrug of indifference along with 

production of vital protective items to forestall

contagion of the deadly monster it unleashed.

Aspiring Heavenward, Mired in Life's Gutter

We look with wonder at the world around us

aspire to unlock the secrets of the universe

devise analytics of ingenious design enabling 

astrophysicists to surmise properties of 

unseen particles dispatched by nature to interact 

and produce the building blocks of the universe 

yet our very own mysteries of humankind's

reaction to our very selves divided by the species'

variant attributes producing wretched antipathies

through which to prey on one another proceed

apace to go undiagnosed. Where groups sequestre

among their own while scorning and degrading 

the inheritance of 'the other' bringing to bear 

the venomous hatred of differences leading to 

an endlessly repeated simmering cauldron of 

inhumanity mounting humiliation and misery

on hapless targets in cycles of vicious atrocities on

sufferers whose causation remains unaddressed.

Rapacious Glory

Humbled? Humiliated? Its transparent malice 

no longer couched in diplomacy but in threats 

and reactions punishing to its opponents in awe 

of the power and strength of a country whose 

population is manifold times greater than their own

whose immense military, technologically bristling

in support of a ruling ideology whose collective 

thirst for greater hegemonic width and breadth in

its avuncular excursion into penurious far off 

nations circling the world, investing, lending out 

treasury, building infrastructure in creation of its

present-day Silk Road, binding the naive with the 

strictures of indebtedness it ranks triumphant lashing 

with brittle maledictions those opponents who see 

beyond the icily rictus smile to the pirating of

contested territory, the grim rejoinders and

intimidation to silence critics. Psychopathic

in its devotion to self, oblivious to the litter

of moral corpses left in its wake, China rules!

 

 

Raising the Periscope

As though not of your very own volition

you spoke not a word of what you knew

all of it submerged deep in your subconscious 

that you would spare your children the misery

of rejection that reached you at a young age 

that your inheritance was one spurned, mocked 

and detested by the world at large because this 

was a different era, people were more sensitive

to wrongs wreaked on the vulnerable to whom 

history had always been unkind and so why burden 

them? And so you forbore and you rested easy 

in the knowledge that they carried themselves 

proudly, confident of their place in the world

never realizing that the venom of unreasoning 

hatred never dissipates, it retreats and sizzles 

deep within the haters to eventually erupt and 

their targets are never immune from the darts

of poisoned malice. In their turn your children 

unprepared by you mounted their own defences 

surmounting adversarial hatred and kept that

from you, anxious you not be unduly upset...

The Chronicler of Evil

Compelling, frightening, bizarrely written

quite the description. First-hand of course.

As a witness haunted by those indescribable

events you did describe them and now they

haunt the readers of your memoir. But you

survived as testament to what you saw and

heard and felt and experienced and conveyed

all of that to the world at large. They are of

course beyond comprehension, beyond the

scope of a sane mind to even contemplate.

Few of your family survived the horrors of 

that searing ordeal whose monumental scope

scored victory in annals of human depravity.

It is obvious what compelled you to write and

publish attesting to the carnage of the Holocaust

but what made you think your words crafted to

produce a mind-picture of such bestial disregard

for humanity would resonate in a world where

doubt of the event is promulgated by legions of

Jew-haters? Your wish was to relieve your guilt

at survival with an intact memory victimizing you

endlessly while conveying to the world at large

depths of depraved brutality submerged in the

human heart. The message delivered, still stifles 

your every thought in despair. What have you 

gained, poor man, there is no deliverance.

It is only members of your own tribe who have 

any interest in knowing and sharing your pain.

The perpetrators have long forgiven themselves.

 

Oh, Humanity!

In one day's issue of a local newspaper the

vicissitudes and vagaries of humanity revealed 

in a synopsis of the sublime and the ridiculous

from an piously theocratic group solemnly advising 

that to govern properly hands must be severed and 

public executions proceed in the administration 

of a criminal justice system. On a tourist island its

residents are evacuated as a volcano erupts and

lava incinerates towns and villages. A pampered 

society's focus reports on the importance of selecting

 seasonal colours for one's genetic skin tone. The 

heroic story of a group of doctors in India vowing

to vaccinate remote villagers trekking through 

mountain passes to achieve their goal, balanced 

against brilliant minds obsessed with mortality

insisting human life can be extended to two centuries. 

In Somalia suicide bombers succeed in snuffing 

existence for victims and in Canada care workers

stress over an increased work load of crack

fentanyl and meth users increasingly overdosing.

Migrants flood the borders of wealthy nations to

declare themselves refugees from persecution

poverty and death, among them criminals and

threats to public safety creating a conundrum of

humanitarian dilemmas. Two belligerent nations

reach a compromise releasing political prisoners

while the world grapples with a deadly pandemic.

Global protests erupt against civil freedoms curtailed

mandated by medical experts and government 

agencies face a raging electorate calmed to a degree 

when the public treasury disburses financial aid. 

Nations at war and nations in peace form alliances 

in trade and in conflict. Babies are born and named

and celebrities issue forth on grand display to

ease the stifling boredom of a world in disarray.

Moving On...

Once universally celebrated for her

uniquely perfect form and carriage

she rails now against the perfidy of nature

frivolously imposing upon her the vagaries 

of old age dismissing the superb 

endowments she was given not as a

gift but an entitlement in the interests of

instructing womankind what they too

could aspire to knowing they might but

never succeeding in emulating the 

heights of her ornamental, natural profile.

How unjust life is to withdraw those very

physical merits that drew the attention of

an admiring world, leaving her no more

remarkable now than any other woman for

whom encroaching age dispels the image of

immortal perfection. Become a hermit she

alternates between silence and rage at the

disfigurement imposed upon her leaving

her once-sublime form so...ordinary,

 

 

Autumnal Equinox

This day has brought turbulence

to the atmosphere of the forest, its

creek streaming wildly through

the ravine turbid and swollen with

woody debris washed from the

forest canopy in a furious sweep

of wild wind screaming through

tree masts bent in a macabre

dance bringing death to some

split from trunks, victims of a

changing season. Of sturm und drang

there is ample for nature adores a

tone poem in her honour and she has

ordered her elements to scrub and

burnish the landscape for the

occasion. Torrents of rain artfully

varnish the glowing green landscape

as it stands bowed but beautiful, an

ethereal luminosity radiating within.

 

 

The Fabled Lands of Milk, Peace and Honey

Although nature's blueprint for existence

is complex her formula for survival

is simple and basic; creatures cannot

exist where sustenance is absent. In her

great wisdom attrition of species is

linked to many circumstances distinctly

averse to survival, but even the fittest

require the means by which they can

thrive and reproduce. Should a habitat

become deficient as a food source then

migratory creatures seek it elsewhere or

they perish. Among humankind the great

issues of inhumanity create areas inimical

to the survival of people who form desperate

caravans of migrants issuing toward lands

of plenty and peace. As geographies of

failed cultures drain their occupants toward

those of successful societies leaving a

vacuum there and a keening mob here the

Earth will not tilt off its axis but where once 

was peace and plenty there will then be rage 

and conflict and withering resources.

Producing Miracles

Is it stinking sanctimony that patricians 

exude when from the humble heights of 

their grand style they seek the ultimate 

in political station to wield power on behalf of

the downtrodden, or is it a genuine concern 

for those upon whom their wealth has been 

built? Revolutionaries of exalted social status 

abound in the history of liberation. 

Pounding the speakers' pulpit exhorting the

emergence of a new society of equals where

the wealthy willingly surrender a portion 

of their riches on behalf of the public weal 

has a long tradition as a step-ladder in

ascending to political power on the votes 

of the credulous agreeing that life's treasures 

be split to enhance their miserable lives

endorsing time and again the charlatans 

who promise a changed world even those 

whose former reign produced not one of those

promises in law and action, yet the same

false words continue to evoke hope in

the minds of the desperate dreaming that

this time elevating the charming minstrel

of false illusions may produce miracles.

O Canada : A Fresh Beginning

Courage fails us. We are perhaps resigned.

In this democratic country voters have

a choice. Unlike Russia and Iran where

grim authorities vet candidates to decide

who may offer services to the public and

who may not. In this country there are

political parties reflecting the spectrum of

choices; right, left, middling, those that

focus on regional not national issues

flirting with dissolving the union, others

issues that negatively impact communities

and the electorate is free to vote with their

sympathies and their conscience. As we in

this household did. And now forbear to view

the outcome. There can only be two in essence;

one that will return an ethically bankrupt 

man to power who has virtually bankrupted

the country in his manipulative zeal to 'buy'

the leadership. The other that would bring in

new and trusted leadership in the hope that a

fresh beginning can correct the damage done.

 

 

More (Credulous) Fools We

No doubt it is viewed by some as

cynically amusing. Comedy? Farce...?

Try a political election campaign

featuring a reigning prime minister who

is a master at subterfuge as a consummate

actor on the stage of a country's parliament.

One who unerringly judges the level of

gullibility of his public and plays to it

expertly with the finesse of one whose

experience is that charm and a less than

masculine but more than limp-handed

presence emoting empathy for those less

fortunate than he with his legacy name and

family wealth along with firm dedication

to social equality and gender issues draw

a picture of a political champion. One whose

entitlements to performative missions to

highlight his charisma drawing voters to his 

side who manage to overlook his cause-corrupt

and vengeance-laden agenda not meant for

public consumption. The ultimate trust fund 

socialist padding in on stealth-cats-paws of 

sleek and slick avowals of social justice whose 

various causes are forgotten once in office.

No scruples? Despicable? Little matter. 

Little Black Sprite : In Memory

 

We cannot begin to know
nor to understand what haunts
this small black presence so familiar
yet so distanced from us by
biology, but linked to us
through long years of shared love.

She has become other than
what she once was, but then don't
we all, as we inevitably age well
past adulthood and into agedness?
Patterns once recognizable and
reliable have suddenly muted.

Gradually, and for prolonged periods
some presaging element we cannot
know overcomes her. She stands
motionless, head alert to some sound
we cannot detect, as though being
called somewhere we cannot go.

Obedient to this mysterious malady
that has expunged her memory she startles
and removes herself from our company.
Restlessly pacing from room to room
refusing to be placated and comforted
she remains aloof and we distracted.

Forgotten, it appears, routine and
etiquette, as she becomes submerged in
some mysterious alteration we can only
hazard as emerging dementia and we
are silent also, but in grief, believing
her to be preparing to leave us.

She is, after all, fully seventeen years.
A dishevelled-looking miniature
poodle mix whose years with us
illuminated the potential for shared joy;
humankind and domesticated animal.
We are not prepared for her to take
her leave of us, and emphatically tell

her so. It seems that our message
may have been heeded. She now seeks
comfort in our presence, finding solace
and companionship with us once again.
Recalling the imperatives that were
observed, and according to her sterling
physical health, banished the

dank evil spirits brooding at the
entry-way of her mind, her character.
She is slowly shedding the symptoms
of disorder, once more assuming her
vital role as care-taker of our sunny moods. 

 

 

 

 

Omnipotent Impotence

If the divine spirit of creation
does critically observe the 
creatures inhabiting the zoo called
Earth, how then does that creator
weigh and balance responsibility
resulting from the inspiration to
imbue its creatures with passion?
The fraught, inexplicable transition
from polarizing extremes like
love and hatred whereby the most
cerebrally gifted of creation's
living experiments adapt life
to the non-existence of death,
a finality expunging life, as
example. Had the creator imagined
that within its divine self only
would the ultimate authority 
of life and death reside? But
then, the creator designed its
creatures to procreate, endowing
them with the capacity to bring
forth new life, and in so doing 
enabling those blighted creatures 
also to destroy lives the benighted
considered unworthy as though
it was they dabbling in the arcane
laboratory of existence, shuffling
stardust, carbon and atoms
about at whimsical dalliance.

 

Again? Louder Please!

 

Lights. Cameras. Action.

Another election. So soon? So

needlessly. The hunger for power

is limitless. Governing without a

majority yet still using all the

certainties at his command

doling out 'assistance' to those

not needing it does ensure a certain

measure of reciprocity at the polls.

The man asserts his only goal is

to serve the public, when on the

evidence he has served only his

own aspirations, public weal be

damned. And it has been, left with

an insurmountable public debt 

and a society fractured with distrust

and ideological polarization, a

country destabilized by a leader

whose ethics and morals corrupt his

office, yet shrugs off censure and

blithely assures blind followers of

his most sincere plans to serve

them as the country crumbles.

Sneers all Around

Has there ever been a politician

who hasn't aspired to create a

society reflective of his very own

world view? They are after all

leaders compelled to lead others

to the way and the truth and both

just happen to coincide with his

insight into an imperfect world order

patiently awaiting intervention

that he is prepared to lead to. Of

course there are differences in degree

of harm meted out in the guise of

progress but no one remembers in

the course of time who did what and

why; it is the reason they are trusting

followers. Pondering the prevalence

of charlatans and autocrats one can

only surmise politics is an end-game

of social deviants prepared to turn the

tide in favour of compelling ordinary

citizens to set aside skepticism and credit 

the weight of an absent conscience.

 

 

Abbreviating Life

 

Abbreviating Life

It's the truculent truth is it not?
This is no rehearsal, it's here
it's brief and it's final, one
lifespan so swift it leaves
spinning heads to wonder. No
argument though, you cannot
have it all. Not as simple as
making choices. Some harbour
scant curiosity, satisfied with
mundane routine, certifying
they will live a long, quite
ordinary life. Those propelled
consumed and intent on a search
for deeper meaning in existence
those whose senses are excited
and exalted by approaching
the farthest reaches of the world
looking aspirationally at the
vastness of the universe, yearning
to reach and to touch the outer
limits of endurance have bartered
longevity for experience in 
reaching beyond the ordinary.
They spiral inevitably beyond
any but nature's control. It is
they and their ephemeral vision
unafraid of venturing toward
that dark abyss and in the process
willingly abbreviating life.

 

 

Loss of Humanity

They live now as citizens of countries

where conflict is an alien concept

these refugees from war-torn nations

whose flight brought them to safety and

new lives. They live in the freedom denied

them in their homeland where death stalked

the land where their memories still linger

their loss rankling, their fear for relatives

and friends incessant and with reason now

the theocratic butchers that once reined

and shattered peoples' lives have returned.

Their fears orders a protest that their new

country lacks a response to the fearsome

return of Islamist rule yet their conflicted

placards appeal to peace, not war. Surely

they are aware implacable fundamentalists

cannot be moved by diplomatic measures

for they are dedicated to violence and death

both of which the refugees escaped and now

writhe in agony of conscience at those left

to suffer the degraded loss of humanity.

A U.S. Run On Custodian Gift-Cars

Agreed universally, charity speaks

volumes of the values of the giver

in the understanding that the privileged

are obligated to share their good fortune

with those whom fortune overlooked.

It lightens the heart to know one's

generosity benefits those less fortunate

than ourselves who need only a hand up

enabling them to share quality of life

that is ours. Take as example the staff

surprising the school custodian who

daily walks to work given the surprise

of his life, keys to a car bought for him

the beaming faces of staff confronting

his amazement. In the video circulating

to great applause he stands there, slim

and muscular surrounded by mountains

of female flesh who drive themselves to

work daily. Will he soon resemble them

forfeit his good health derived from work

and exercise to please a vision of plenty?

If on his janitor's salary he has far more

pressing obligations than car ownership

who will pay for the auto upkeep now that

he is obligated to make use of the gift lest

he offend his benefactors who immensely

pleased themselves by a public display of

charity in removing self-respect and agency

from the possession of one they pitied?

 

In The Fall

 

It's a restless night

the wind prowls through

every niche and cranny

in the blackness of the

forest where trees stand

dark and still the silence

broken by a steady shuffle of

still-green foliage. Daytime

the wind had competition

as far above the forest canopy

etched on grey-streaked clouds

a squadron of jet planes swept

the sky bellowing through the

turbulent air as though to challenge

the wind harvesting leafy branches

in a steady stream of bellicose rage

foliage floating languidly to the

forest floor. Nature dispatching

her elements to usher in fall. The

planes streaking the sky

were dispatched by human agency

to remember and to mourn the

carnage imposed on an unsuspecting

world of opposing ideologies

creating a harvest of human casualties

in the fall of innocence.

On That Day

It took the unholy marriage of

primitive human savagery

and modern human technology

to turn the wholesale destruction

of an empire's confidence to ashes.

Barbaric minds capable of devising

schemes bold and vicious exacting

vengeance on a regime they condemn 

in antagonism with their own and 

in the full magnitude of their success

unimaginable to the illusion of peace 

and stability bring unspeakable carnage 

to the largest audience a display 

of mass murder has ever seen. 

The implacable desolation of horror.

 

 

The Dentist

In a studio impeccable while

functionally equipped this 

slender woman performs miracles

of artistic brilliance. Given rare

and priceless materials

to design her flawless works of art she

creates hidden jewels proudly

worn by clients anxious to schedule

appointments with this skilled artist

whose gentle touch and steady hand

masters tools dangerous in their

potential for harm yet in her

proficient, skilled hands produce

sculptures of unerring perfection.

Clients enter in a state of

trusting trepidation, then depart

relieved of tension - the enamalled

lustre of their serried pearls

intact and restored, an authentic

gift inherited at birth by all.

 

 

And In Summation

 

Whether fortune or destiny it has been quite 

the trip of a lifetime the most serendipitous 

of all adventures. Its embarkation point at the 

chance meeting of two fourteen-year olds with

much in common excepting gender. From that 

time forward a brace of lookalikes, thinkalikes 

on the express that briefly stops at a multitude 

of heralded markers on the highway through a 

lifetime of a shared destination. You laugh 

together now at the personality reversals when 

one was withdrawn and socially awkward

the other a sometimes-extrovert and now the 

exchange is complete. The gossamer ribbon of 

need and love binding you cherished, taut and 

inflexible, a chronic condition replete with the 

magic of fairy dust generously sprinkled over

eyes that see not the inexorable transformation 

of enfeebled age but the vision of each in youth 

the healthful vigour of life's travel companions.

The President Speaks

Hear ye, Hear ye, the President has spoken.

In a method both timeworn and shopworn

yet worn at times of desperation when

powerful men spectacularly fail those whose

gullibility raised them to the pinnacle of

prestige and power, this president like his

predecessors and successors compares his

reign favourably against the dereliction to

duty in the public realm of those behind him

promising to shed light on the tendentious

faults of those responsible for calamities that

befell the people. This, at a time when the

sitting authority's actions have brought to his

countrymen shame and to his allies harms

that caution would prevent. Stooping low to

fly high, out of reach of critics in a storm of

indignation against predecessors, in good time

another Caesar will ascend to storm against

the deceitful harms the current office-holder

besmirched his nation's history with in a

subconscious parody of moral sedition while

consorting with the enemy to evade victory. 

The Political Theatre

A thespian born, scion of a political house 

in a fairy-take match between a philosopher

and an aspirational celebrity princess yearning 

to be more than wife-of, dreaming of consorting 

with pop stars. On  him showered the fairy dust 

of the theatrical stage yet the challenge of the polls 

struggled within; celebrity versus power. His 

pretty face and exuberant conceit made him fit 

for the stage, credentials as a school drama coach

 sturdily foretold his future. A penchant for lavish

extravagant costumes, his propensity toward mimicry

posing as what  he was not, his outgoing notoriety as 

'son of' inspired him finally to abandon tutoring 

snowboarding in favour of politics as a celebrity 

coming home to roost. Popularity became him

 as the charming prince of nonchalant promises 

flaunting name and mane, his sunny temperament 

a magnet whose irresistible attraction gained him 

fame and position. Installed a the nation's leader 

neither his juvenile antics nor his unlawful flaunting

of privileges his alone, dissuaded the public from 

enduring trust. An expert in blame and shame 

not his own, fawning admirers forgave and forgot 

their hero's countless infractions, his disastrous 

role as leader, his failures and his conspicuous

avoidance of responsibility. He reigns a bankrupt 

country to match his bankrupt morals in a nation

finally anxiously awaiting timely rescue.

Shush ... Say Nothing ...

Quick now: who is the most powerful man 

in the world? No one would disagree that 

whoever it is sitting in the Oval Office in the 

White House has more influence and power 

than any other individual wherever they may be

whoever they may be. Strange isn't it, that the 

world waits on the final word of a senescent 

dodderer whose life breathed politics and seemed 

always there yet scarcely noticed and now 

occupies the chair of the desk of the President 

of the United States of America. His predecessor 

was mocked and reviled accused of every vile 

action conceivable and either inspired devotion 

or ridicule and hatred. In office for a full term

denied another, he wrought little damage to the 

office or to the world at large. His successor in 

thrall to a vision of progressive enlightenment 

assumes strict obedience to the rabble that placed 

him there though his predecessor's accession had

been attributed to a deplorable rabble, while the 

current office holder's are elected representatives 

of government intent on doing their best to destroy 

their country and with it the entire world community 

collapsing in disarray, afflicted with the doomsday 

promise of an unconquerable Islamist emirate.

He Who Knows All

 

The man is an impressive mountain of flesh 

but solid despite height and girth and with

energy to spare. You've known him long enough 

to see his thick thatch of hair turn a glaring white

but he is not old nor is he handicapped by his

generosity of size. Can a mountain swagger? 

This one does with the self-confidence of one 

whose opinion and store of esoteric knowledge 

has instilled in him the conceit of a philosopher

king. He expounds smoothly on any topic that

his mind -- an encyclopedia of anything worth 

knowing -- has absorbed. Not exactly smug

no -- just simply secure in the certainty that

he knows and is happy to confer what he knows 

to your advantage. And you do well to nod 

and smile and reserve comment. Never think 

of revealing to the mountain that his all-knowing 

facts have somehow been scrambled in the

mind-files tucked assiduously away for future 

reference so what he emits is sheer nonsense 

even though mountains are not known to erupt

in a furious hail of fire as do unstable volcanoes.

Disarming Evil

Have you never noticed how inherently naive 

the good are, prepared to believe in the best 

of human nature. They are so touchingly trusting

like children whose nurturing parents have 

never denied them their fantasies. They cling 

to their belief in the universality of good in 

human nature that in good time sociopaths 

will see the error of their ways and reform 

themselves for the betterment of humankind. 

Have you ever noticed that the innocence of 

the good is happily exploited by psychopaths 

more cunning than those they have contempt 

for and knowing how the good are motivated

moved to make full use of any opportunity to 

turn their trust to the favour of the malevolence

beating in the heartless souls of incontrovertible 

menaces to the peace and security of a complacent

world in its embrace of benevolence toward

all in the firm belief of its mellowing power.

Describing Herself

 

Voice beyond peeved
as she tells me how
fed up she is
with her best friend
always bemoaning her lot
finding little to
her liking in life
grumbling miserably
about everything, forever
in the blackest of moods,
never appreciating what
anyone does for her
caution tells me not to
interrupt and confess
how familiar it all sounds
as though this is
herself describing herself.

 

 

The Glory of the Battlefield

The commanding general of the retreating forces 

declares his satisfaction and pride in the military 

performance of his troops representing the largest 

army on the planet, the most meticulously trained 

and technically equipped, proficient and capable 

in conventional warfare. At the stroke of midnight 

they are airborne, flight completed. No trumpets blare.

The president of the most powerful nation on Earth 

declares his nation will no longer lead as the global

community's guiding light when the oppressed quail 

under the boot of tyrants whose bellicose threats 

reverberate within the world community on notice 

of invasion, promising that no longer would his country 

fear the attacks of barbarian terrorists. The leaders of 

barbarian terrorists gloat in their good fortune inheriting 

the advanced machinery of war graciously left behind 

by their departing foes enabling them to focus on 

tracking and executing those among them declared 

apostates and traitors in their alliance with foreign 

invaders. First the immediate reprisals destroying 

homegrown opponents, later the strategic blueprint 

for the agents of terror to infiltrate the halls of 

Western power to set off an epochal cataclysm of 

violent destruction. History repeats itself endlessly

in the fall of great empires outliving themselves.